FLDS leader Warren Jeffs (AP photo)
Jeffs was convicted in Utah in 2007 of rape by accomplice, a conviction that was overturned last year by the state's Supreme Court, which cited improper jury instructions by the trial judge.
"As a result of the conviction in Texas, we decided not to bring him back to Utah for a retrial," Brian Filter, senior deputy attorney for Washington County, said Wednesday.
Jeffs, 55, is the ecclesiastical head of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In August, a West Texas judge sentenced him to life in prison for the sexual assault of an underage bride.
The Utah case involved an arranged marriage in 2001 of 14-year-old Elissa Wall to her first cousin, Allen Steed, 19. Jeffs presided at the wedding despite Wall's protests that she did not want to marry Steed. Prosecutors filed two felony charges of rape by accomplice, accusing Jeffs of forcing Wall to marry Steed and telling her to submit to sex with him.
Steed was initially charged with rape but pleaded guilty in February to a reduced charge of solemnization of a prohibited marriage and is serving 36 months' probation, Filter said.
Jeffs faces no other charges in Utah.
The decision to drop the case was made with the consent of Wall and Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. The state Supreme Court provided no guidance that would make another trial possible, Shurtleff spokesman Paul Murphy said. But given Jeffs' sentence in Texas, there was little to gain by pursuing the Utah case, Murphy said.
This week in Texas, a former bishop in the FLDS church was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being convicted of presiding over Jeffs' marriage to a 12-year-old girl. Fredrick Merril Jessop, 75, received the maximum sentence on the charge of performing an illegal wedding ceremony.
That case grew out of a raid at the sect's Yearning for Zion Ranch in 2008 near Eldorado. Authorities gathered a trove of evidence they used to bring charges against Jessop, Jeffs and 10 other followers.
Jeffs' life sentence was for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old spiritual wife. He got 20 years for sexually assaulting a 15-year-old wife with whom he had a child.
Jeffs is scheduled to go on trial on bigamy charges in February in San Angelo.
On Aug. 28, about three weeks after his conviction, he told corrections officers that he had been fasting since the end of his trial and was ill. He was transferred to the prison hospital in Galveston. The prison system website indicates that he has been returned to the Powledge Unit in Palestine.
He tried to hang himself in January 2007 while awaiting trial on the rape charges in Utah, according to court documents. He also threw himself against the walls of his cell and banged his head.
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